


Heavy Water

by tigrrmilk



Category: Hydroman (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Other, by which i do NOT mean "the golden age of science", golden age science
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 08:03:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2805431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigrrmilk/pseuds/tigrrmilk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Our friend Bobby is a little busy right now,” Joyce said. She ground one cigarette butt under her heel, and then the other.</p><p>“Oh I know,” Harry said, a bit wistfully. “It’s just... you know how much I love a good masquerade. And he’s already got the tights on. He’d barely need to change.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heavy Water

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Febricant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Febricant/gifts).



> warning: there's one minor piece of violence in this. it's not graphic.
> 
> as bob blake would probably say: HAPPY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Joyce lit two cigarettes. Bob cocked his head to one side to see if she’d offer one to him or Harry, but she didn’t. She smoked them at the same time as one another, and stared Bob down as if daring him to say something about it.

Bob was no scientist (that was Harry!) but he sure wasn’t stupid. He smiled at her, and said, “ain’t the air just wonderful here, Joyce?”

“Brooklyn is a cesspool,” she said. “That’s _why_ I’m having a cigarette.”

Harry smiled at her, vaguely. “You’re a riot,” Bob said.

The air rang with car exhaust, and people shouting. It was a very dry day. Bob could feel it in his skin. “This had better be quick,” Joyce said. “All this _Brooklyn air_ is giving me a headache.”

Harry’s arm was slung over her shoulders. They stared up at the building they knew the gangsters were holed up in. Bob cracked his knuckles, and said, “what do you think? That look like a waterpipe to you?”

“A wastepipe, maybe,” Joyce said through her cigarettes.

Bob pulled off his shirt to reveal the translite suit he was wearing beneath. Harry was very proud of that suit - he’d invented the material himself. Originally it had been for a party costume, a sturdier form of cellophane... but it had turned out to be much more useful than that. It was bullet-proof, you see. And so... Bob wore it when he was fighting. Harry was still pleased when Bob wore the suit to parties, though.

Bob started to undo his belt.

Harry had one of the suits too, of course. And Joyce. For... parties. Bob had _insisted_. Harry always felt strange in his, though. He didn’t like it. He felt cold, even though he knew logically that it was an insulator, and he always found himself... sweating in it. Too much was exposed. He’d rather be at the side, helping, than punching whatever was bad in the face.

Joyce had put the damned things together, but she liked punching the bad guys in the face, too. Well, she’d rather just use her _gun_. It hurt her hands less.

Harry wasn’t that sure how he’d come to find these people, but he was glad that he had.

 

***

 

It was a very warm day. It would be relief for Bob to not have to wear pants on top of his tights anymore. The materials rubbed together in a very... constricting way.

Of course, it would be even better to actually be water, but he always forgot about that until it was about to happen. It was hard to get used to the feeling of being water. He still wasn’t sure how the change even worked, but last time he’d asked Harry about it Harry had just flapped his hands around and said words like “astringency” and “bloodstream” and “ZOUNDS!” and Bob had slowly backed away until he was out of reach of whatever chemicals Harry had near him at the time.

He closed his eyes after he’d slipped his pants off and thought about rain. Not yet, though. He wasn’t there yet. He looked down at the pipe and bit at the edge of his thumb.

“Ready?” Harry asked.

 

***

 

Harry carefully reassembled the pipe. “Do you think Bob remembers our plans for this evening?” he asked.

“Our friend Bobby is a little busy right now,” Joyce said. She ground one cigarette butt under her heel, and then the other.

“Oh I know,” Harry said, a bit wistfully. “It’s just... you know how much I love a good masquerade. And he’s already got the tights on. He’d barely need to change.”

Joyce slipped her arm through Harry’s.

“He’ll probably _want_ to change,” she said, her voice a bit softer than normal. “You know how gross he gets. How can he bear the _smell_.”

Harry thought, privately, he doesn’t usually smell _that_ bad. Just kind of... damp. It made sense, really. But he had nothing against Bob changing his clothes either. He looked up at the sky. It was getting late, but it was still bright. That’s summer, for you. Especially in the big city. It never gets dark, and every other building seems to house a gang of fifth columnists or corrupt gangsters or some other group of unruly but inept criminals.

“That’s the thing, Harry!” Bob had said, excitedly, after his first time _fighting crime_. “Water’s the only universal constant! Everyone needs to drink!” And nobody expects their enemy to be hiding in the water supply.

“I see you forgot to tell Bob about the robots,” Joyce had said. She was smoking then, too, but only a normal, solitary cigarette that time. “They just want _oil_ in their joints.”

“Aw, kiddo,” Bob had said, and ruffled her hair. “Nobody told you yet that robots ain’t real? You’ve been buyin’ too many comic books.”

Joyce threw her cigarette at him, and he had to pat himself down on the chest where the embers had caught. “You’re a doll,” he said. “Really.” He stamped the rest of the cigarette underfoot, and she looked vaguely put out.

Harry rubbed his glasses on his shirt. “She’s right!” he said. “Some guys working in a big lab a block over from me, they’ve got a project going - they gave me a tour the other week. They’re good guys, but if their research fell into the wrong hands...”

Bob waved his hands in the air, stars in his eyes. “We won’t let anything happen, Harry,” he said. “What else am I here for? Think I’m just a pretty face, d’you?”

“Not just,” Harry had said.

 

***

 

That had led to this whole... situation. It had taken a few months - and in the meantime, Bob had got used to the whole, hiding in some water until he could become himself again and punch the bad guys in the face _thing_. They’d caught spies, gangsters, and a wannabe-murderer or two. It was strange. Harry was pleased that his idea had worked, of course. But...

“I was talking to some strange men in the street,” Joyce had said, a few nights before. “Seemed more interesting than either of you lugs.”

“C’mon,” Bob had said. He was leaning against her on the couch, playing with her hair. “ _You love me_. Look at this great apartment we’ve got.”

Harry looked around. Maybe he needed to clear some of his stuff up. There were altogether too many bunsen burners and bottles of dangerous chemicals and not enough rugs and flowers for a pleasant living space. That was his fault, probably.

Not that either of the others really seemed to care.

“I didn’t know you needed any more strange men in your life,” Harry said. “Do you want me to try injecting Bob with any more of my chemicals? Turn him into fire or something this time?”

“Hey,” Bob said, and threw a cushion at Harry’s head. Harry tried to catch it, but he had never had very good hand-eye co-ordination, and it hit him in the face.

“Oof,” he said, gingerly rubbing his nose.

“So these men,” Joyce said, “said that they’d been making some _strange_ deliveries to that lab opposite yours. Barrels of some special type of water.”

“Special water?” Bob said. “All water’s special.” He had a soppy look on his face. Joyce clipped him round the ear.

“Water is boring,” she said. “I don’t know what makes this water so special. But they also said there were these men hanging around with cigars and big hats, watching them lugging the barrels around with more interest than you'd expect from guys like that...”

And then they’d listened to the Glen Miller orchestra on the radio, and danced around the room. Harry moved some of his stuff so that they had more room to move. The room was bigger than it looked at first glance. It was hot, and it smelled of ash, but Harry had dealt with worse.

 

***

 

While Bob was doing who knows what to the gangsters upstairs, Harry was still trying to work out what special type of water the scientists might have been having delivered. “Do you think it was just acid?” he asked. “That’s usually what we get at my lab. Acid looks like water, but if you drink it...” He mimed somebody’s throat burning off their body. He made his face crumple inwards. Joyce made a face at him back. Right. Not everybody cares about acid.

“You think just because we ain’t scientists, we’re stupid?” Joyce asked. “No, it was water. ”

“Heavy water?” Harry asked.

"Water _is_ heavy," Joyce said.

Harry clicked his fingers. “That’s it, Joyce!” he said. “Don’t you see! It all fits!”

Joyce looked at him sidelong. “Well, how about that,” she said.

 

***

 

Somebody’d better get thirsty soon, Bob thought morosely, as he sat in the pipe. He could hear men talking, but it was all very far away. Like hearing somebody talk to you when you’re both swimming underwater. It always felt like that - like he still had a body. Until he looked around and realised that he didn’t. He could remember that now. He usually forgot it. Like how you forget pain.

The faucet was old, and stiff, and it was... dripping a bit. Good, Bob thought. But it would still be quicker if somebody just had a drink. It was much more dramatic, and really Bob had half got into this for the drama. Nobody would dress up in an outfit that was essentially made of bulletproof cellophane just because they wanted to help people. If he’d wanted to help people, he would have got a job in a hospital or something.

What were they saying?

There were loads of half-built robot chassis around the room - Bob could just about make them out as he dripped, piece by piece, into the sink. It was a very big room - it must have been the whole top floor of the building, with the ceilings ripped out so the beams were exposed. A high roof. Further away from Bob were lots of other... machines. The interior parts of the robots. And barrels and barrels of... something. Bob couldn’t smell whatever it was, but then he wasn’t sure he _could_ smell anything when he was water.

“Boss,” one of the men said. He was fiddling with the tap on the side of one of the barrels. Bob had slowly come to realise that there were two groups of people in the room - the gangsters, and some scientists (from the lab opposite Harry’s? It would make sense, maybe). He should have worked it out sooner - the scientists were mostly wearing lab coats, and looked terrified, and had their hands tied behind their backs - but it was hard to piece everything together in this state.

“Could I - could I have a drink of water?” One of the scientists asked. She was a young woman with curly hair pushed behind her ears, and her lab coat was too big for her so she’d rolled the sleeves up over her elbows. Bob thought he recognised her - had she been Harry’s lab assistant at some point?

“No!” the man in charge said, and impatiently clapped his hands in the direction of the man she’d interrupted. “Go on.”

“Boss,” he said. “I think it’s just... water.” He held up a glass that he’d filled up halfway from the barrel. There was a clear liquid inside. “It doesn’t smell of anything.”

“Taste it,” his boss said.

He tasted it, and said, “it tastes like water.”

Bob thought, I ain’t Harry, but I know you don’t go around tasting weird chemicals you’ve stolen from science labs.

He also thought, why have they got barrels of water when they’ve got pipes. _What am I, chopped liver?_

He dripped a couple more times, and he thought - well, soon...

 

***

 

Joyce looked at Harry and said, “I still don’t know what heavy water does.”

Harry took a deep breath. He didn't mind repeating himself.

“Don’t try and tell me,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Trust me, _I don't want to know_. How long’s it been? Think he needs our help yet?” She ran a hand along the pistol she kept at her hip.

“Give it ten,” Harry said. He wanted to explain heavy water again! He couldn’t believe she didn’t care! “This building isn’t big enough to actually house any kind of reactor,” he said, helpfully “so it’s probably not going to blow up.” He couldn’t stop himself. Joyce gave him the stinkeye.

 

***

 

“The water is not for the robots,” one of the older scientists was saying, patiently. “It, ah, has heavier molecules in it.”

“How heavy is it supposed to be?” One of the younger gangsters asked. He was trying to lift one of the barrels but he couldn’t shift it. He didn’t look like a particularly strong man.

“Well, _heavy_ refers more to the number of atoms than to the actual... weight,” the scientist said.

The younger female scientist blew a strand of hair out of her face. “You wouldn’t understand,” she said. “I’d draw you a diagram, but my hands are still stuck behind my back.”

She paused, and then said. “Could I have some water? Not from the barrel. Despite what you’ve heard, not all ladies have _expensive taste_.”

“It’s just water,” the younger gangster said, but he filled a glass at the faucet anyway. He wouldn’t free her hands, so he held it up to her face. She took a sip - damn, Bob thought - and then spat it out into the gangster’s face.

“HEY!” he said, and that’s when Bob turned back into Bob again.

 

***

 

“I can hear yelling,” Joyce said. “We’d better go and save the day.”

“Sure,” Harry said.

 

***

 

“I knew it!” the woman said. “I knew Hydroman would rescue us!”

“How?” the older male scientist asked. Bob punched the younger gangster in the face.

“That’s why we gave Harry a tour,” she said. “Everybody knows that he created Hydroman...”

“Hey,” Bob said. “I resent that remark. I am a self-made man. Right, chump?” He kicked the gangster on the floor for good measure. “Now does somebody mind filling me in? All this over not even enough water to fill a swimming pool??!!!”

There was a click. One of the gangster bosses - they had been surprisingly quiet since Bob had first appeared from the water - had a gun. He waved it in the air. Bob ducked down, and said, “You’ll find I have a way of avoiding bullets...” and then turned into water again. The gangster he’d punched had dropped the other glass he was holding as he’d gone down - so thoughtful!

But this felt weird. It was - Bob could hardly move. He couldn’t see. It was like all of his limbs were pinned down, except he didn’t have any limbs. _Help_ , he tried to call. _Get Harry. And Joyce._ But the puddle was small, and he couldn’t - he couldn’t do that either. The gangster splashed his foot in him and sneered.

“I see the heavy water’s good for something,” he said. “What, no retaliation? Hydroman, I expected more.” There was a pause, in which Bob did nothing. “I’m going to break one of your fingers now,” he said. The older male scientist screamed. “Good,” he said. “You are going to tell me once more what this water can do, and then we are going to work out where best to put you and your friends.”

“You need a reactor,” the woman said. She sounded less confident than before, but her boss was crying, and somebody had to reply before they did something else _horrible_. “You’re out of luck.”

“I was about to say the same to you and your friend here,” the man said. Bob could barely make out what was going on. He focused so hard - but nothing. It was like sleep paralysis, but worse. What if nobody ever found him, and he was stuck as water _forever_?

 _Harry_ , he thought. Harry would know how to fix this!

“Where’s the nearest reactor?” the gangster asked. “You sayin’ this water ain’t for those robots your lab’s building? Last I heard, you were all workin’ on a line of atomic robots with death-rays.”

“Yeah!” another of his men cried, waving his gun around. “What if the reactors are all in _them_? What if the water is all they need to _run_?”

The younger scientist couldn’t help sighing, very, very deeply. She couldn’t believe they were asking this. “Well, gentlemen, I could give you a physics lecture but something tells me you’d be bored silly.”

“Watch who you’re calling silly,” the man with the gun said. “Fred, Jimmy - get a couple the robots over here.”

 

***

 

“The door’s locked,” Harry said. Joyce sighed and pulled a pin out of her hair.

“Hold my gun, wouldya,” she said, and handed it to him. “Safety’s on.”

Harry wrapped his hand around the gun, but he let his wrist go slack as he held it away from his body. He hated these things! That’s why he - that’s why he’d helped Bob find another way. And why he didn’t get involved except when he _had_ to.

A small click. Joyce took the gun back and kissed him on the cheek. “Get ready, pal.”

 

***

 

“I know a couple French scientists who’re gonna be real sore if you pour that water on our robots,” the woman said, tiredly. “And my boss here is going to be sad that you’ve made them rust.”

“I can’t see where to put it,” the youngest gangster said, rubbing the red spot on his face where Hydroman had punched him. “Get her to show me.”

“I’d leave her alone if I were you!” Joyce shouted. She was pointing her gun directly at the leader of the operation, the door flung open behind her. “You’re going to come over here, see, with your hands on your head.”

“Put your gun down!” Harry shouted at the man, who scowled, but did so.

“Jean!” Joyce called. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“Hydroman’s in a puddle on the floor,” Jean said. “He wasn’t as much use as I’d hoped.”

“Hydroman?” Harry shouted at the puddle.

"This is bad!!!" Joyce shouted.

“I think it might be because it's _heavy water_ ,” Jean said. “Could you free my wrists? It hurts something awful to have them tied like this.”

Harry untied her, staring at the puddle all the while. “I’ve got it!” he said, his heart thumping in his chest. He’d better be right, else... “Heavy water occurs naturally, but at a much lesser concentration! If I dilute this puddle with water from the faucet...”

Jean went to untie her colleagues.

“What if you just dilute Bob!” Joyce called. She had all four gangsters in front of her, their hands on the ground. “Like when you put too much water in the whisky and it’s not whisky anymore!!”

“That’s not how it works,” Harry said, then scrubbed at his face with his hand. “At least, I hope not.”

He picked up the glass and filled it at the faucet, and tipped it over the puddle Jean had indicated. Nothing. He did it again, and again, and then one more time for luck.

“Hydroman?” he said. “Er, Bob?”

“We don’t have all day!!!” Joyce shouted. “We’ve got to get our new pals down to the precinct!”

With a splutter, Bob appeared from the puddle on the ground, and staggered into Harry’s waiting arms.

“Er,” Jean said. “I didn’t have a chance to say anything before, but that’s quite an outfit you’ve got there.”

“We were going to go to a party after all this excitement,” Harry said, “but I think maybe we need a raincheck.” Bob’s helmet was loose, and he took it off him and ran a hand through his hair. “You okay, pal?”

Bob groaned and pressed his face into Harry's shoulder. It felt so weird to move. But he was so glad that he _could_ move. He groaned again as an experiment, and felt happy when Harry ran his hand through his hair again, and then rested his hand at the base of his neck. “Peachy,” he said.

“I want to see a doctor,” the lead scientist said. “And in case any of you were thinking of explaining what just happened, please spare me the details.”

 

***

 

"I don't get it," Joyce said, her arm slung around Bob as she and Harry helped him walk to the subway from the precinct. His body still wasn't quite used to being his body, although Harry was sure that it'd adjust soon. At least he had his proper clothes back on top of the translite suit now, so nobody was giving them any funny looks. "What are the robots for?"

"Now that," Harry said, "is the big question, isn't it?"

"A big question that you're _not answering_ ," she said.

"Maybe they were just keeping the heavy water safe," Harry said. "Maybe it has nothing to do with the robots."

"Hmm," Bob mumbled. "I think I'll keep an eye on them all the same."

 

***

 

“I’m real sorry to miss the party,” Bob said. He was curled up under a blanket on the couch next to Harry. Joyce was trying to find something good on the wireless.

“I’ll never forgive you,” Joyce said, then started to hum along to the song she’d found. “Hey, Harry, how about a dance? We can show Bob what he’s missing.”

Bob waved Harry up, and Harry smiled at him. “If you insist,” he said. “But I’ll warn ya again that you _know_ I have two left feet.”

"Don't worry," Bob said. “Once I’ve finished my drink, I’ll _cut_ in.” He lifted one foot into the air and wobbled it around, then put it back down. Harry took Joyce's hand. It had been a hot day, but the evening was cool. Joyce had put the hairpin back in her hair. Bob was going to be okay. And there was no news on the radio, only music.

**Author's Note:**

> (i still don't really know what heavy water is for)


End file.
